London (AFP)

British health authorities on Monday launched a massive screening operation in eight areas of England after the discovery of 11 cases of the coronavirus variant which appeared in South Africa, without an established link to any travel.

In total, the regions concerned (parts of London, the West Midlands, the East, the South East and the North West) represent a population of around 80,000 people.

Since December 22, 105 cases of this variant likely to be more contagious, against which some of the current vaccines seem less effective, have been detected, according to the British Department of Health.

In recent days, 11 cases have been identified without any link to a trip can be established.

"It is vital that we do everything we can to stop the transmission of this variant," Health Minister Matt Hancock said in a statement, calling on all those living in the affected areas to be tested, that they may or may not show symptoms.

The appearance of these cases "reminds us forcefully that the fight against the virus is not over," he added at a press conference.

These 11 cases, scattered geographically, "do not appear to be linked at the moment," said Susan Hopkins, head of Public Health England, citing the hypothesis of infections linked to an asymptomatic person from abroad.

"We are looking for additional cases in the population to see if we can find any links, and try to eliminate transmission between people," she explained.

Present at one of the testing sites in Woking (south-west London), Tim Oliver, who heads the local community in Surrey, stressed that health authorities want to carry out a "census" to find out to what extent this variant spread".

Volunteers will, for example, go door to door to drop off "screening kits" that residents will have to carry out themselves, he explained.

Since the detection of the first cases of this variant in the United Kingdom at the end of December, the government has banned all direct air links from South Africa and closed its borders to arrivals from around thirty countries deemed at risk.

To these restrictions must soon be added the establishment of a compulsory quarantine at the hotel for travelers from these countries to whom entry into British territory could not be refused, in particular for British residents.

Already faced with a more contagious variant that has led to an explosion of the epidemic and a third confinement, the United Kingdom, which has already vaccinated more than nine million people, intends to fight against the importation of new variants.

The coronavirus has killed more than 106,000 in the United Kingdom, the hardest-hit country in Europe.

© 2021 AFP